History of Vegitarianism and Cow Veneration in India

Author(s): Willem B Bollee
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd

Page 15

HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM IN INDIA
and frequently eggs. By no means are all Hindus vegetarians, indeed not even a majority are, but vegetarianism established by the religion of such a significant and influential section of people as in India has scarcely any parallel elsewhere in the world. We can again refer to Gandhi here. The extraordinary significance which vegetarianism had for him will have strongly impressed every reader of his autobiography, which appeared a few months ago, finally also in German.? [4] In addition to that, the sanctity of cattle (by no means only the cow!) precludes even most non-vegetarians from the consumption of beef, and this considering the fact that the prohibition of cattle killing has plainly made India, the country most abounding with cattle in the world. Millions of cattle which are no longer of service at all are robbing the others of their fodder: it is scientifically verifiable that the available supply of nourishment does not suffice for the rest of cows. This chronic crisis of nutrition could probably alone be solved if the cattle population of India were halved. It is the sacredness of the cattle which presents one of the toughest problems to the Indian economy.
The frequent question about the origin or source of so characteristic and vital a feature of the Indian culture as ahimsā and 'cowveneration' has not been answered satisfactorily to this day. From the start, we should well exclude rationalistic responses such as the prohibition of cattle killing as a wise protection of an absolutely essential agricultural aid from destruction in times of famine, or vegetarianism as a climatic measure of hygienic precaution. On the other hand, the question of the origin of the veneration is even more taxing in view of the fact that in Indian antiquity the situation was quite different from today: the Aryans, whose immigration during the middle of the second millennium BCE is the crucial event in Indian history, are presented in their ancient literature as meateaters, who certainly did not shrink from slaughtering and consuming their numerous cattle.
It is beyond the scope of the present investigation to conclusively answer the question, nor is it possible or intended to write a complete history of ahimsā and cattle protection based on a collection
1 About 1990, G.-D. Sontheimer reckoned 70% of Hindus to be non
vegetarians (private communication (hereafter p.c.) to WB). 2 Gandhi 1960. 3 Alsdorf 1955: 132 - This is not the case any more, see e.g. Harris quoted
in Chapple 1993: 137 (p.c. from Chapple) (WB).